The Blitz produced beautiful art on the Tube

I've just been to the Blitz exhibition at Aldwych Tube Station, which I highly recommend.

Aldwych was closed in the 1990s due to lack of use, and has now been done up as a Second World War tube station, with a series of 1940s carriages decked out with London Transport posters and wartime ads. The station was used as an air raid shelter and it doesn't take much imagination to go back in time – the surroundings are almost completely unchanged from the 40s.

There's a bit of embarrassing role play done by some overenthusiastic actors of the "Cor lumme, strike a light, don't look so down in your north and south, me old china" school of acting. But ignore them and instead take in the beauty of the art. From the font of the blackout warnings, to the posters of wartime London, to the public warning cartoons, the art is of a uniform excellence.

Because the War so dominates our picture of the 1940s, it's hard to separate artistic movements at the time from political events. But, looking at the Aldwych art, it's possible to see the 1940s as a crossing point between formal,detailed pre-War illustrations and the post-War, stripped down, space age minimalism of the Festival of Britain era of the 1950s. It makes for a delightful combination.